Kelly Gallagher, Britain’s first Winter Paralympic gold medallist, says she is
committed to the sport despite coming home from Sochi penniless

Kelly Gallagher, Britain’s first Winter Paralympic gold medallist, revealed on Monday that she was returning home “skint” from Sochi while Jade Etherington, the quadruple medal winner, cast doubts about her future in the sport due to potential funding shortfalls for the next four years.

As the country’s most successful Winter Paralympic Games team arrived back home the haul of six medals was hailed but with a warning that winter sport was still “a work in progress” with more funding needed beyond the two sports represented in Russia.

Great Britain secured five Alpine skiing medals – one gold, three silvers and a bronze – and a bronze in wheelchair curling, but had no representatives in Nordic skiing, snowboarding or ice sledge hockey. GB finished 10th in the medals table.

“We are delighted about the six medals, reaching the medal target that was agreed with UK Sport,” Penny Briscoe, the Paralympics GB performance director, said yesterday. “Both sports represented in Sochi medalled which is fantastic for the team, but we had a number of debutants on the slopes with personal best times finishes and five athletes under 20 years of age, who performed incredibly too.But that has to be tempered by the fact we only had two of the winter sports in Sochi.”

The team were funded by £750,000 from UK Sport, but it is estimated that around £5 million might be required to have a full team at Pyeongchang in 2018 , including both ice sledge hockey and nordic disciplines. There may be a need for business partners to become involved given that UK Sport funding is based more on performance and medals, rather than potential. The ice sledge hockey team, for example, which has a squad of 12 players, missed out on qualifying at the final tournament.

“Funding is based on results in part and also being able to present a business case to UK Sport,” Briscoe said. “The sport has the talent pathway to be able to deliver in the next four to eight years and from a skiing perspective and curling perspective we feel pretty confident, but it’s work in progress in terms of developing the entire winter sport programme for ParalympicsGB.

“We didn’t have any snowboard representation or sledge hockey representation in Russia and the significant number of medals in both biathlon and Nordic that we haven’t seen since the 1990s. The standard of Paralympic Winter sport is no different to the summer sport programme: the bar’s being set higher and higher and therefore for us to be competitive we’ve got to have more robust programmes.”

Briscoe also expects a take-up in the talent identification programme after increased media coverage. “Positive media plays a massive part in our environment and we are in the post-London era, and the positive presentation of the athletes in action really will spark the imagination of those who want to get involved in winter sports.”

Kelly Gallagher said on Monday that she remained committed to the sport in spite of being “skint”. The 28-year-old visually impaired skier won the Super-G with guide Charlotte Evans.

“We’ve been through so much. I’ve been through so much injury that my body is a wreck, Charlotte’s deferred her university course,” Gallagher said. “We are skint, we are less than skint, we have no money. We love this sport and I’m so glad that people are getting to see they can achieve whatever they want to achieve through throwing themselves at something.”

Her team-mate Etherington , who won four medals with guide Caroline Powell, including three silvers and a bronze,has raised doubts over her future in the sport. The 23-year-old said that, due to the sacrifices involved, she had to be convinced the required funding would be forthcoming and the programmes run by Disability Snowsport UK, the governing body in Britain, could meet her new ambitions.